NVC - war protester meets right-wing Christian

(Crossposted at RochesterTurning.)

Some of you may know about Non-Violent Communication. I'm in a workshop with a handful of folks where we're learning and applying it. An example of it just happened to a friend of mine, and inspired me to write this.  Folks that are tired of waiting for a Department Of Peace to be created are using it to work, person-to-person, to spread peace throughout the world. Yes! magazine (the best magazine in the friggin' world) put its use in "Active Non-Violence" as #1 on it's 10 most hopeful trends of the last 10 years:

...thousands of ordinary people across the nation and around the world [...] have  stopped waiting for their political leaders to lead and taken the initiative  themselves. These people are finding new ways to work with enemies and listen  with compassion to the people they fear, to create peace in conflict zones. They  are inventing methods to interrupt the cycle of fear and punishment that has  left 2 million people imprisoned in the United States. And they are teaching  others how to do the same.

Reaching out into prisons, refugee camps, and war zones, these brave souls practicing Active Non-Violence are on the cutting edge of what may be our world's best chance for peace.

International Fellowship of Reconciliation, Nonviolence International, Women  Making Peace, and the Michigan Peace Teams, thousands of ordinary folks  accompany activists in conflict zones, monitor elections, and stand by the  oppressed. Their bravery is usually unheralded; there are no magnetic yellow  ribbons for people like 23-year-old Rachel Corrie, killed in the southern Gaza  city of Rafa when she tried to prevent the demolition of a friend's home by the  Israeli army, or for the four Christian peacemakers kidnapped in  Iraq.

Thousands of people have been trained in conflict resolution and  entered zones of conflict. In Angola alone, Search for Common Ground trained  10,000 internally displaced persons in conflict resolution, and the learning  ripples out as those people establish new organizations and use the techniques  they've learned.

It's all about getting people with differing viewpoints, even murderously so, to see through each other's eyes, for even a moment. And it doesn't have to be in combat zones. Our polarized nation, fenced off into Red and Blue, can benefit from this as well. In fact, I believe we must take advantage of this to try to knit back together what Rove and crew have torn asunder.

Now, I'm not talking about moving to the right, or giving in, on the contrary, this is about standing up for what you believe and being heard, where before you could never get a word in edgewise.  I don't think it's a good strategy for political speeches, or debates, but person-to-person or at town meetings? I think there's some real potential.

I'll leave you with an example of this from one of my friends who is in the workshop with me:

At a peace vigil yesterday, someone came up to us to tell us we were killing  the troops in Iraq, and shouldn't demonstrate our opposition to the  war.

He was pretty aggressive, and after a few minutes, the leader of  our group wouldn't talk to him any more, so I talked to him.  It was a  perfect place for Nonviolent Communications, and after reassuring him I  heard his message (which took listening to quite a few repetitions) he  calmed down considerably and in between the lines confessed deep pain and  distress about having spent 9 months in Iraq.

I asked, if  protesting the war is the wrong thing, what is the right thing for those  of us who disapprove to do?  He didn't know.  But he would pray about  it, and get back to me.  We exchanged phone numbers.  I took his address,  and promised to send him something to read.  And he will  send me something to read.  He shook my hand, and said he never  imagined he would shake the hand of a peace protester!

Did my friend have to "move to the Right"? No. But he made a connection with that man, and opened a window in the wall the Right has worked so hard to construct between us.  The next time that man sees a protest on the news, he will have a harder time labeling them as "commie peaceniks".  And will have a harder time agreeing with his bible study group when they go off on protesters. Maybe the next time he hears Rep. Murtha talk about the need to bring the troops home, he will be that much more receptive, and less receptive to Reilly O'Limbaugh's putdowns of him.

Now that's just one encounter, with one person, but it started with angry shouting and denouncing and ended with a handshake and warm feelings.  Imagine if we all were better at doing this-- better at punching straight through the frames Rove and co. have set up about liberals, opening windows person to person.  Not by giving up on our beliefs, quite the opposite, having them heard and appreciated.